[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I can't find anything in the rules that lays out a process for an alliance captain to decline, BigJ. But one sure way to do it is to not be present for alliance selection!

A year ago at North Star I had a team pack up their pit and start to haul stuff out before alliance selection. One of my inspectors caught them when they were asking for the garage door to be opened so they could leave, and pulled me in to talk with them. The team was very upfront and had obviously spent some time thinking things through. They told me they were well aware of their robot's capabilities and they were positive they weren't going to be picked. They wanted to load up the truck and get started on the several hour drive home they had.

After a bit of back and forth, I asked them what seed they were. After all, a team seeded 60th who is positive they won't be picked and wants to leave before alliance selection could be seen as a gracious decline. But that's not where they were seeded. No, they were the 9th seed. Once I heard that, I ordered them back to their pit. I explained that I've seen enough alliance selection and enough matches to know that XXXX was going to pick YYYY, and they were going to be an alliance captain. Turns out, they captained the 7th place alliance.

I imagine that, if the team really had packed up and left, everyone would have shifted up and they essentially would have been skipped.

+1 to ordering them back to be captain . How did they do in elims?